


When Things Are Right

by kaeorin



Series: Loki's Lullabies [80]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Avenger Loki (Marvel), Comfort, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Hurt Loki (Marvel), Living Together, Nervousness, Reader-Insert, Surprises
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-14
Updated: 2020-06-14
Packaged: 2021-03-03 18:40:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24710197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaeorin/pseuds/kaeorin
Summary: You make a space for Loki in your dresser drawers but the idea of telling him about it terrifies you.
Relationships: Loki (Marvel)/Reader
Series: Loki's Lullabies [80]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1678240
Comments: 14
Kudos: 243





	When Things Are Right

It wasn’t really your intention to do it. It kind of just happened.

It started when Loki started spending more and more time at your place, instead of at the Tower. He’d stay the night, or a couple of nights, and the whole time he was there, you felt like you were on Cloud 9, just sort of floating in a near-constant state of bliss. You liked seeing him in your space. You had lived here for a long time, so you’d more or less grown accustomed to the sense of loneliness that could creep so easily through your apartment, but Loki’s presence did away with that. 

He started leaving clothes in your apartment, probably by accident. A pair of socks would slip under the couch, or a shirt would end up in your laundry basket. After a while, he nearly had a couple spare outfits of lounging-around clothes for your place. So you put them in one of your drawers. You had kind of bad habit of waiting too long to put your own laundry away, so, more often than not, you sort of just dressed out of your clean hamper, and, anyway, you had more drawer space than clothes to fill it with. So, without much fanfare, you cleared out one of your drawers, folded up his things, and tucked them away. 

You weren’t sure how to tell him. You weren’t even really sure that you _wanted_ to tell him. The idea of it made you nervous. What if he got the wrong idea? What if he thought you were trying to make more out of this relationship than he was? What if he got nervous and broke things off? You never, never wanted to become the kind of woman who got so wrapped up in a relationship that you couldn’t live without it, but the idea of having to live without Loki physically pained you. So you kind of kept things under wraps, for now. If he came over and it seemed like he planned to spend the night, you’d slip away and take his sweatpants out of your drawer and put them on your dresser. If he showered in the morning, and you figured out that he’d need a clean shirt, you’d take one out of his drawer and unfold it so you could drop it on the top of your clean hamper. 

Every once in a while, he’d joke about how often he left things behind, and how it made things difficult for him when he tried to get dressed in the Tower. Or he’d joke about how you were always able to produce clean clothes for him out of nothing, like you were a witch. Each time, his eyes sparkled and he grinned at you, and you swallowed down your revelation about his drawer. Some small part of you worried that he’d take all his things home when he discovered how much he’d left here, but mostly you worried that he’d end it all with you. You were fully aware of just how irrational that fear was, but...life wasn’t always rational. Relationships weren’t always rational. Sometimes things ended without any sort of rhyme or reason. Someone could be madly in love one day and then break things off without warning the next. 

Granted, no one had ever looked at you like Loki did. No one had ever run their fingertips along your body like they could read the secrets of the universe in your skin. No one had ever held your face in their hands the way he did, like he was cupping something perfect, something precious. No one had ever spoken to you in a voice that made you shiver like his did. No one had ever kissed you like he did, with their lips and teeth and tongue but also with something deeper, that sometimes made you choke back sudden tears. 

But the fact of the matter was that he was royalty. He was a god—maybe not by birth, but certainly by the myths of early humans. It stood to reason that he could love you more deeply than any human ever had, but that still wasn’t any kind of guarantee. So, although you were extremely comfortable in his presence, in his love, curled up snugly against his body, you didn’t let yourself get too comfortable in the relationship itself. You told yourself, in the back of your mind, that this could all end just as easily as it had started.

He came to you the night that he and his brother returned from a SHIELD mission. You knew he was coming back, because Tony often texted you updates when Loki was sent into the field, but it was late. He’d be exhausted, maybe hurt, and he’d be lucky to make it off the jet and into bed. So you were at home. Maybe you were sitting up, awake on the couch, waiting for Tony’s customary “The vampire bat has landed” text, but surely there was nothing wrong with wanting to make sure that all was well. Not that you could have done anything to help if it wasn’t.

Your phone vibrated on the cushion next to you, and you picked it up by muscle memory alone.

_Incoming!_

You stared blankly at the screen for several long moments. What did that mean? You were pondering the possibilities—mainly something like “Tony programmed an AI to text you these things and it short-circuited”—when you heard a knock on your door. 

This late at night, it could only really be Loki, couldn’t it? You rose onto unsteady legs and hurried to the door. You were almost dreading what you’d see on the other side. Was he alright? Why had he come here instead of staying in the Tower? Slowly, you opened the door, and there he stood. He was gripping the doorway as though to keep himself aright. You couldn’t see any blood but you knew enough to know that that didn’t mean he wasn’t hurt. He wasn’t breathing particularly heavily, but his posture seemed to scream to you that he was in pain. He raised his eyes to meet yours and gave you a grin that looked more like a grimace.

“Hello, darling.” His voice was low and rough. “Can I come in?”

Your body reacted before your mind could figure out how to answer. You reached for him and slipped your arm around his back so you could support more of his weight. He leaned on you heavily enough to make you worry, but didn’t have much trouble stepping inside. Once you closed the door behind him, he froze in place for a moment, and you realized he was trying to toe off his boots. Because he knew that you didn’t like wearing shoes inside the apartment. Your breath caught in your throat. No one else ever saw this side of him, this kind, considerate side. He was having trouble, so you nudged him backwards to lean against the door and crouched to take care of it for him.

There were so many things you wanted to ask him. What are you doing here? Are you okay? Why are you here? What happened? Where were you? But the questions whirling in your head all seemed to run together and get stuck. You looked up at him, only to see that he was already gazing down at you with a soft smile. He extended a hand to you to help you stand up again, not that you really let him help that much. Even once you’d stood up, he did not release your hand. Instead, he brought it up to his lips to kiss your knuckles, and that’s when you saw how shredded his knuckles were.

“Are you okay?” It was, perhaps, the silliest question that you’d been pondering, but it was also the one that weighed the heaviest. Was he hurt? Should he have gone to the medbay before he came to see you? With as quickly as he’d arrived after Tony’s text, there was no way that he’d gotten proper medical care.

But he nodded. “All is well, my love. Your world is safe for another day. Do you mind if I shower?”

You laughed before you could catch yourself. He looked half-dead on his feet and he wanted a shower? Of course, you knew better than to argue with him or to try to get him to change his mind. You’d had limited success with that kind of thing in the past, and every time you did, you were immediately wracked with guilt over it. If he wanted to shower, you’d let him shower. He was still looking at you, regarding you with equal parts exhaustion and adoration in his eyes. It made you feel a little dizzy. You nodded. “Yeah—or, er, no, I don’t mind. You can shower. Do you want any help?” You started guiding him towards your bathroom. He wasn’t leaning quite as heavily on you now, but it was still hard to imagine him being able to take care of himself in the shower.

He laughed. “As much as I enjoy it when you join me, I fear that your perfect body, glittering under the spray of water, will only serve as a distraction tonight.” He leaned to kiss your burning cheek. “I am very tired.”

“Okay.” Your voice sounded a little unsteady, but it was easy enough to blame that on the way he was speaking to you. You patted his side and stopped in front of the bathroom door. “Be careful, okay? And if you need anything, just yell.”

He thanked you with a warm smile and ducked inside. You hovered in the hallway for a little while and listened to him strip off his body armor, his clothes, and drop them onto the floor. A little while after he stepped under the spray of water, you allowed yourself to head into the bedroom. Maybe you’d change the sheets. It hadn’t been too long since you’d last changed them, but you were rather fond of the way it felt to slide into a clean bed after a long day, so maybe he’d like it too. You took out a spare set of sheets and stripped the bed. The familiar ritual also gave you something to focus on that wasn’t straining your ears for any sign that Loki needed help. 

Maybe you took a little too long smoothing out imaginary wrinkles and trying to get the corners of the sheets hospital-perfect, because you didn’t notice when the water stopped, or the door opened. You were just tugging the comforter into place when Loki came to lean against the doorway and murmur your name. You looked up. He wore nothing but a towel wrapped around his hips, exposing his chest and arms and stomach to you. You loved his body. You loved his muscles and the way his skin moved and how he often flexed beneath your touch. He didn’t look too badly damaged. He had marks and bruises, and a few shallow scrapes, but nothing that looked life-threatening. Maybe he was only tired, not badly hurt.

“I did not bring anything to change into,” he said in a low voice. “I was hoping...” 

He was hoping that you could magic some clothing for him out of thin air. Your eyes flashed guiltily towards his drawer. He had plenty to wear, but it would be silly of you to try to make him look away while you got it for him, right? You clenched your hands into fists for a moment, then forced yourself to relax them again. It was now or never. At least tonight he seemed too tired to up and leave.

“Yeah, of course. Um. I’ll show you, but maybe please don’t feel too weird? This doesn’t have to mean anything, um, or change anything, okay? It’s just...there was a lot, so I wanted to put it somewhere, so, um...” Somewhere in the back of your mind, you knew that you weren’t making a lick of sense. Rather than trying to explain yourself any more, you went over to your dresser and opened his drawer. You felt him come to stand just behind you, felt his hand touch the small of your back. You pointed at his clothes. “These are all yours. It felt weird to just leave them balled up with the rest of my laundry all the time, because I know you don’t really like wrinkles. And I kind of liked knowing that you had a place for them. Even though...I never...told you.”

He didn’t say anything for several long moments, but there was something in his silence which kept your heart from sinking. He didn’t seem horrified. He was staring at the drawer, but something in his eyes reminded you of the way he’d looked at you when you’d first bared yourself to him. He reached out to touch his clothing and wrapped his other hand around your waist. He pulled you close to him and then turned to press his forehead to your temple.

“You made space for me here.” He said it quietly, but of course you heard him perfectly. 

“Well, yeah. You’re here a lot. I love it when you’re here.” Things were shifting pretty quickly for you and you were realizing that all of your worries had been ridiculous. “This isn’t...weird, is it?”

“No one has ever done anything like this for me.” He said it quietly, haltingly. He had space in the Tower, you knew, but perhaps it felt more hard-fought. He’d told you once that he didn’t spend much time dwelling on concepts like “home” anymore, but that the Tower certainly was not it. It wasn’t hard for you to make the connection to his childhood. He’d had his needs provided for, of course, but even that hadn’t always felt quite right. 

“I love you.” You could spend the rest of your life telling him that, and trying to show him that, and you knew it still wouldn’t make up for all the time he’d spent not hearing it from others. He opened his mouth to speak, but before he could, you felt his legs wobble a bit, like his knees were threatening to give out on him. That reminded you why he was here. “Alright, put these on.” You grabbed his sweatpants and handed them to him, then held him steady as he stepped into them. A t-shirt was next, and he leaned forward a bit and raised his arms so you could help him with that. Your heart thumped wildly in your chest when he did. There were not enough words in any human language for how much you loved him. When you’d tugged the shirt down into place, you patted his chest fondly and then led him over to the bed. He got in without much trouble, and his long, steady sigh as he settled in made you smile. The clean sheets were a good idea. 

You climbed into bed on “your” side and curled yourself around him. It felt like you were full of things you wanted to say to him: questions and statements and promises, but there was something about his presence beside you there in bed that allowed your mind to go still. You held him as his breath evened out, and then you fell asleep as well.

This was right.


End file.
